636 Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

When we’re in the middle of hardship, tragedy, or any painful circumstance, it can be hard to appreciate in the moment that much good can come from our suffering. Many entrepreneurs like my guest today – Shauna Brittenham Reiter – are by nature alchemists who have taken inspiration from their own problems to solve the problems of millions of others.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock, 5 time serial entrepreneur and founder-CEO of the social podcast app Podopolo, and if you’re new to Wings of Inspired Business, welcome!  So happy to have you here because on Wings I share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I believe women entrepreneurs all soar higher when we lift as we climb!

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who shares with us her knowledge and expertise in the world of nutrition and health.

Born with an autoimmune condition that suppresses her white blood cells, Shauna spent years battling oppressive ailments. When her beautiful children arrived, they brought tremendous joy into her life, but her immune system had its own agenda. Sleepless nights and depleted energy threatened to disrupt Shauna’s time with her children and derail her larger goals. She knew that her body needed healing.

So began Shauna’s journey into the world of superfoods and the creation of Alaya [al-lie-ya] Naturals. Today, Shauna is stronger, healthier, and more present in all areas of her life – and is helping so many more to vibrant health.

Today we talk about her entrepreneurial journey, the mindset entrepreneurs need to succeed, plus insights about health and wellness, and much more.

Shauna will be here in just a moment! First…

Have you downloaded Podopolo yet? If you’re listening to this podcast right now then I know you love podcasts as much as me – and that’s why it’s time to explore the app that makes listening social and curates the ideal podcasts for you from our library of more than 4 million. Find out what everyone is talking about – join us on Podopolo today – free to download in either app store.

We all have life lessons to learn, a life lesson of course being either a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to overcome, or a repeating pattern that keeps testing us until we learn the lesson.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter was diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease at age 14 – and her early suffering led her on a path to explore alternative remedies and sparked a consciousness that we are what we feed ourselves with – physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. And as she explored homeopathy, acupuncture, and many other modalities, it was music that captured her heart. She worked as a studio singer, and eventually took the plunge and dedicated herself full-time to writing and singing her own songs. Her album Dreamer’s Dream was released in 2017—just before a new chapter in her life began. In 2018 she founded the multi-million-dollar nutrition and wellness company Alaya [al-lie-ya] Naturals, with the goal of sharing with others the hard-won fruit of her own struggles with nutrition and health.

Shauna says it’s been a long road as she researched, tested, and perfected her products – helping many thousands of people as she helped herself.

Today we talk about reinvention, the alchemy of entrepreneurship in leveraging our own struggles to help others, and the inside skinny on health, wellness and her growing company.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Shauna Brittenham Reiter.

Melinda Wittstock:

Shauna welcome to Wings.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Thank you, Melinda. I appreciate being here.

Melinda Wittstock:

I want to hear the story of how you built Alaya and obviously your own personal immune situation was the big spark. Take me back to that moment when you looked around and, oh God, got frustrated where there was no solution to this. I guess I better just kind of put my hand up and I’m going to go do it.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Yeah. So there was that moment, but interestingly enough, it probably the inception of my company probably began when I was 14 years old and had been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. And I had ulcers in both of my intestines and my stomach could really only metabolize predigested food in pureed form. And also within a year, discovered that my white blood cell count was super deficient. On a scale of about four to 11, I’m a 1.5 on average. So I was faced with significant challenges very early on, which I, at this point in my life, celebrate. Because I think that youth often doesn’t have the privilege of slowing down and necessitating or mandating an awareness of not only what they’re putting in their body physically, but emotionally, spiritually and mentally as well. And I took a pretty thorough inventory [inaudible 00:01:50].

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s go back to age 14 and you had, it sounds like, a consciousness that it wasn’t just like you are what you eat, but you are what you think and what you feel as well. Was it that clear to you or-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

It was actually that clear to me. It was, you are what you think, feel, believe. You can sometimes play into and play out the narrative of what you perceive other people’s thoughts and perceptions of you are as well. And so there are just so many false pretenses by which we live our lives. And at that point, it became very clear to me that I really couldn’t digest how I was existing, which fueled for me an exploration of alternative wellness that included a registered dietician, an herbalist who was also an acupuncturist, a beautiful homeopathic practitioner who really helped tune me into how comprehensive and intelligent the design of nature is and how much we can be nourished by it. And also thank goodness for traditional MDs, on the more academic path. I mean, I think that we have to pick and choose as we go through life, depending on what the circumstances demand.

But I really was in a beautiful position of having support from all of these different types of practitioners and it, in many ways, informed how I would live up until now, which is really slowing down and not kind of mulling over nuance. I think for my four year old, we were talking about how enhanced and exponentially more advanced their level of awareness is, I think part of that comes from the fact that I narrate everything for them. So that they kind of practice understanding within themselves what they’re thinking and believing and how they’re feeling physically, which is something that I don’t know that we consciously do unless we’re forced to, there’s sort of a running dialogue in our minds all the time. But we’re not always aware of what we’re thinking about and how cyclical and redundant and compulsive and unnecessary some of those thought patterns can be.

And so with my four year old and I have a six year old boy as well, who’s super bright and super aware, a lot of the conversation is wow, you look like you’re moving a little faster than you want to right now. What’s going on? You seem a little rushed. Is there something else that you’re wanting to do in this moment? And just kind of practicing being aware of where we are and how we’re behaving and what feels natural and what doesn’t so that we don’t end up with ulcers, ultimately.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, there’s so much to this. So many different directions to take the conversation and I can’t help but reflect that, what happened to you, in essence, was for you, but also for everybody else. From your kids to all of your customers. Because, like you said, if you hadn’t gone through this, as painful as the experience, no doubt, was you wouldn’t have been able to give this gift to so many.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Absolutely. And I believe that. I mean everything that we experience in life can either fuel our advancement in certain ways and deepen the ways in which we celebrate this experience on the planet, or it can plunge us into negativity and despair. And there’s a difference between I think, pain and suffering. And I think being human can be incredibly painful at times, but I don’t think that that experience is one that we shouldn’t be in conversation with as well. It’s really easy to want to dismiss the harder moments, but from my personal experience with not only my physical wellness, but my mental health and my sort of emotional journey, it is being deeply aware of and sort of in the trenches of exploring these really uncomfortable, dark parts of the reality of being human that make everything that feels sunshiny and sweet, even sweeter.

And I think that perception is something that we have control over at any moment. We can’t always choose and select what happens to us. We don’t get to choose the parents that were born into, the economic circumstances, the demographics of where we live necessarily. I mean, there’s a lot that we can’t control. But if we slow down, we can always choose to interpret those experiences and circumstances and the degree of suffering that we may have been thrust into outside of our control in ways that sort of advance the beauty and make the times in which we feel light and there’s ease all the richer.

And so I make it a point in my life to really, first of all, never shy away from anything that’s uncomfortable. If it’s uncomfortable or scary, whether it’s just a part of me and my experience or a conversation I’m having with my spouse or a coworker or a friend, or what’s happening in the world. Whatever it is, I have learned to really plunge in because that’s ultimately, I think, where all the good stuff comes from, including my ability to share not only these nutritional supplements, but the revelation of how we can get from point A to point B emotionally and mentally as well.

Melinda Wittstock:

So true. I mean, it comes down to a choice. What you’re saying at the beginning there of whether we choose the lessons, I guess, that we’re learning through the experience. It could be a negative experience, whether we take a positive out of that or whether we choose to create a story about ourselves that’s negative. And we have so many opportunities for these choices, some of the big, some of these just little micro choices through the day.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Absolutely. And those are really, often, the more defining ones. We think it’s which job we’re taking or who we’re marrying but I think what’s insidious is that every micro choice does determine the bigger choices and so it’s easy to overlook. But how powerfully influential those tiny moments are can’t be underestimated. And I would maybe take it one step further and say that it’s sometimes behooves us to stop defining what’s negative and positive, and what’s a negative experience or moment and what’s a positive one. You and I didn’t talk much before we pressed record, but I did mention I’m a little sleep deprived. And the reason for that is because my son fell yesterday and bust his face open. Busted his face open and so we were at the plastic surgeon’s office all night and he’s full of stitches and can’t finish camp.

And every time his little chin brushed the pillow, he was wide awake. And so I literally slept about an hour and a half last night. And of course not down from the adrenaline and cortisol of that whole experience. And at the outset, it feels just empirically catastrophic. My baby got hurt. His face will be permanently scarred. He is, and this is kind of a vain, superficial comment, but he happens to be just coincidentally, an absolutely gorgeous, brilliant looking boy. And I really struggled last night, not only watching him sort of in pain, but with compulsively obsessing over what I could have done differently to prevent the situation from happening. I was not there when it happened. He was actually with somebody else, but I had had sort of a nagging feeling earlier in the day that something was going to go wrong and that he was going to be too tired to play and that he should be home with me.

And I disregarded that instinct multiple times. And it was actually such a prevalent thought and such an insistent sort of belief in me that I actually called our babysitter and said, let’s reschedule. I went to all these lengths and then she really wanted to be there because we’d planned on it and all these things. And my biggest takeaway at 4:00 AM was not only how powerful our intuition is and how in tune we are with our children and the world at large, but how important it is not to dismiss that intuition because we’re prioritizing another person’s comfort or preference or desire. And I think as women, we’ve been ingrained with this notion that there’s something kind of beautifully sacrificial about putting others first and denying our feelings, that kind of gut intuition to make other people feel happy.

And in this case, not to say, I mean, I think on some level there’s a sort of a false sense of control that I’m trying to create around this whole paradigm. And it’s very possible that maybe something worse would have happened had he been home with me and I fully accept that possibility and that potential reality. But regardless, my take away was this, that when I shut myself off from how I’m feeling and experiencing because it seems irrational, I then don’t use my voice to speak truth. And sometimes that can result in a lot of pain from either myself or the people around me. And all because I think someone else may have a certain reaction to what I’m saying, which will then leave me with a feeling that they’re thinking something controversial about who I am fundamentally.

It’s this ridiculous mind game of, I’m thinking that she might be thinking this, so I’m not going to say that. And I’m going to go along with this, even though I’m not comfortable with it. And I will say that in business that does not work. In life it double doesn’t work because it hurts a lot harder when our son’s face is scarred than when we don’t finalize the deal, or it’s not the number we wanted for something. But this lesson of not making ourselves small to please others, I think has had an enormous impact on my health as well. And last night and this morning as I’m kind of coming out of this fog, I mean, I still can’t conjugate verbs. So I apologize for that.

There’s just no amount of caffeine that can regulate my brain because I am in post-traumatic stress state right now. But I will say that I’m using this fundamentally, really hard, hard experience that one might say that no good can come from, to learn how to be a better mother. How to listen more deeply to the parts of myself that are always actively speaking and trying to communicate something with me and how I can take a pause before I respond to what someone else is needing from me or asking of me to really consider how it plays into the landscape of what makes sense for me in my life, or for me and my children’s life.

Melinda Wittstock:

Absolutely. I mean, the thing about intuition, I’ve learned that so many times now and I’m so much better at following my intuition. However, one of the things that’s hard, I think for a lot of people and it certainly was for me earlier in my life is to know the difference between intuition that’s genuine and something that’s more fear, subconscious route stopping you from doing something right and to know the difference. And I was speaking to someone recently and it’s worth sharing this. She said, well, if it’s intuition, you feel good. If it’s fear, your body’s going to feel not so good. So it keeps coming back to just the awareness, being present, living in the here and now and learning to trust the intuition.

So now I’m at the point, if inexplicably, say I changed my driving route. No, this time I’m going to go left. I listened to that. I go left. Because who knows if I went right, I might get into a traffic accident or something and it’s explicable. But just learning to trust that. And you raise such a good point about how women, especially, we’re so afraid of what other people think of us. And we think that we have to put everyone else’s needs ahead of our own. And I think that we are actually a greater service to people when we look after ourselves first. Because we’re not only going to be in better moods and more productive and more creative and just all those things. We’re just going to have more to give in a more, I don’t know, I’m searching for a word, but in a much better way.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

And more abundant and more authentic and more inspiring.

Melinda Wittstock:

And also, by the way, I mean, one of the things I learned about that is the less I did, in that busy task treadmill kind of way the never ending to do list. The more I abandoned that, the more things just opportunities came to me, or something that I was working on just got resolved. I actually have a funny story. I remember one day I was working on these kind of five priorities that I have and I now run my business and my life with my morning meditation, which leads me to inspiration of what I should really focus on in that day.

And if I listen to that, it’s great. So after one morning meditation, I ended up with these five things that I was supposed to do that day or were supposed to be done. And I ended up writing them down in order kind of what I perceived the priority to be one, two, three, four and five. And for whatever reason, I was working on two, three, four and five and not getting anywhere. And I suddenly had this realization. It’s oh, maybe it’s number one for a reason. I’m supposed to do that one first. So worked on one, one got done in an epic way. And then I literally, other team members had just accomplished two, three, four and five.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

You’re like psychically blockaded from redundancy and avoiding all of that wasted time. That’s incredible. Or they were picking up on it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. So I think what you’re talking about, especially when we apply this to business and the sort of leaders we are as CEOs and founders. How can we inspire this level of consciousness in our teams? And this is something that I am absolutely 100% focused on with Podopolo, my podcasting app. We have a team of 22 now and how can they be conscious in this way that you are describing? And it’s happening and as a result, we have this amazing team culture, but it’s actually a specific aspect. It’s actually a value driver of the business to have a team that’s operating like that-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

That level of awareness. Well, I’m curious, because for instance, yesterday in this incident with my son, I had an intuition and I kept denying it repeatedly and there was a certain outcome. In the case of this collaborative effort with team members, what if everyone’s sparking these genius ideas and has these brilliant insights, but doesn’t have the confidence to execute them or verbalize them because they’re processing and aware of all of the different dynamics and personalities in the room? I’m just curious as a person-

Melinda Wittstock:

We talk about that. We actually talk about that. We’re very focused on our values. This simple sentence, it’s who we’re being more than what we’re doing. And in a company that requires, at the end of the day, it’s a media business, but it’s actually a technology company. At the end of the day, it’s about innovation. And innovation happens when people are willing to take risks and when people are willing to put themselves out on the line. So we just really reward that. No idea is a bad idea. It’s kind of like improv, where you can never say no. You always have to go with it. It’s always [inaudible 00:21:26].

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Right. Or songwriting. I’m a professional songwriter too. So it’s you write 50 songs and one of them might be the one, but you don’t sort of trash yourself every time there’s a discard.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. It’s completely iterative process. So just creating through positive reinforcement, not only a safe place, but rewarding people who take those risks. And it’s a culture where everybody is 100% focused on lifting everyone else up. But it was consciously created that way and consciously hired people who were of that mindset kind of to begin with. At different stages of the journey, perhaps, but people who wanted to work in that way and people who appreciate working in that way.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

And then it just gets positively reinforced continuously and experience acceptance.

Melinda Wittstock:

And growing. And I think it’ll be interesting for a company like ours, as it scales into, say, having a hundred people, or assuming wild success, a thousand people and beyond. How do you keep that culture? And so I think it’s a really interesting thing that I got more and more interested in business number five and through my own spiritual growth and through all the things that have happened to me. That was actually the negative things have happened to me that actually were the greatest life lessons, the greatest things. Actually I look back on them now is yes. Different from yours, but everybody has their own. But it’s the only reason why I’m in the position to be able to consciously focus on creating a culture like this. And it honestly, it makes everybody more productive. Everybody has fun at work. Everybody’s infusing the product with joy rather than stress.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

No one’s terrified of failure or being rejected or being scolded for something. I think it just sounds like there’s a level of self-compassion and generosity that starts with the self that then kind of bleeds into the work environment or into the work culture.

Melinda Wittstock:

Everything comes from within us. I’m just so convinced of it. When I started this, podcast, my intention was to create this abundant ecosystem for women where women were not in scarcity. They weren’t competing against each other. They weren’t in comparisonitis where they felt able to achieve success without guilt, trade off or apology, and that it was kind of an ecosystem where we could all support each other. Lift As We Climb is our hashtag. Lift as we climb.

When we’re able to be in an abundant mindset, being able to kind of grasp concepts like leverage, get out of the kind of “human doing”, we create amazing businesses. I think we’re actually unstoppable when we’re in that zone and we have a capability to really be there. If you get this thing right, all the other stuff becomes easier, I think.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Well, it becomes easier and also you’re not afraid to dive into unchartered territory. I had to learn so much about this industry that I had no real concrete knowledge about. And if I was terrified of what I didn’t know and felt like that somehow said something about my identity, I would have stayed away. I mean, there was a very large part of me in my youth that was perfectionistic to the point that it really excluded a lot of interests and curiosities when I didn’t immediately master something.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh man. I have that issue with my kids. I’m constantly telling them that, oh God, you can’t be good at … it’s like 10,000 hours come on yet.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

It’s a very interesting thing how we somehow decide that our identity is based on how well we perform at such a young age and unfortunately all of these constructs and institutions like schools and the traditional work environments, I mean, yours seems beautifully conscientious and so carefully crafted. [crosstalk 00:26:52] but I mean, I think you’re an anomaly. I think you’re the exception. I think in general, we’re sort of thrust into systems where we’re looking at achievements and numbers in placements and rankings and the soul of the identity is lost in the character and the charm.

And the sort of surreal aspects of a person’s personality are dismissed because they can’t be charted and there’s no number associated with it. And I think that we are, as women, as men as well, people are entering a time in society where you can leverage your personality. You can leverage how articulate you are, how curious you are about yourself and others in the world in ways that are maybe unprecedented. And so I think it’s the ideal time for your podcast, because not only are you helping women gain the strength and confidence to pursue their objectives and dreams professionally, but to understand internally sort of what’s required. And it does start as kids and telling my son is a total perfectionist and he totally got it from my side of the family.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think we confuse perfection with mastery. Because mastery is something that you work at, you take time to, and you get good at something. And that’s great, being really good at something. But the perfectionism is something for women, I think, that’s crippling. Because it makes us work really, really hard without asking for help because it has to be perfect first. The equivalent is the person who cleans their house before the housekeeper comes.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

That’s me. My husband’s like, I don’t even know why she’s coming.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Men don’t do this at all. Men just blink and it doesn’t-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Folds his clothes in tiny bunches and I’m like, that is so insulting. Do you understand what you’re communicating? The level of disrespect that you’re communicating and he’s like, I so don’t get it. This is the day where I can do that. We’re just coming from completely different vantage points.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hold us back because while we’re toiling with our head down, we could be out promoting our thing or getting other people to do it. And it was a big lesson to learn is to double down on the things that only you can do and the things that you love to do and delegating the rest. Because if spreadsheets aren’t your jam or fixing links, you shouldn’t be doing that in your business. There are lots of other people can do it for much less expense because when you think of all the strategic things you can do for your business and the thinking and the vision and all these things, what’s your hourly rate for those things, as opposed to your hourly rate for cleaning a house or fixing a link? An intern can do that. Or someone who loves to do those things is going to get joy from that. And I think women fall into this trap of trying to do it all, thinking they’re kind of heroes in a way for that. It’s like a badge of honor, but it’s actually holds them back from business.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Totally. It makes them cranky and depleted. And then what are you actually investing in your true passion and what you’re gifted in?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Because you can’t really inspire a team from that place either. You got to be-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

You got to be fresh. [crosstalk 00:30:28] Got to be awake and have some level of optimism. I’ll say, too, about the perfectionism piece just to kind of rewind for a second. I was a songwriter and singer for so many years. I’m finally back in the studio now after [crosstalk 00:30:43]. But what’s so interesting is I waited for all of my teens and twenties to become what my version of perfect is, by the way, which is so subjective. So the whole premise was idiotic in retrospect that I could be the judge of when I was ready to be perfect onstage. And I passed up opportunity after opportunity. I was 19. I got an offer to go to Nashville, everything paid for, I mean, from the flight to the EP, world-class musicians. And I was chasing a boy instead because it was like, well, I’m not ready for that anyway. So I’m going to go distract myself with something I actually can’t even have ultimately, this boy.

And then it was in my early twenties, it was David Foster and David Foster can produce you and he can do this and that. And I was like, well, I don’t sing like Whitney Houston. I got to get my chops up. I got to get my game going here. Just need some vocal lessons and I got to work harder first and then it went on and on like this until I got an offer for an ANR deal and I was ready to sign it and was pregnant and couldn’t.

Ultimately, I had to make the choice not to sign this deal. I mean, they offered it to me not knowing I was pregnant, and full disclosure, I was four months pregnant and barely showing and sort of meandering around in Bohemian garb to hide the evidence. But I had literally waited an entire decade to feel ready. And then I had this alien incubating in my body and consuming all my nutrients and dictating all of my thoughts and actions and behaviors and choices. And it was devastating because it was the moment I realized, I had just put a band together that year, was selling out shows all over LA. Immediately got the ANR offer, had just finished my first record or album. I still say record and I will never stop saying it.

And then at that moment had to sort of decide, what is my life going to be? And I chose to stay at home with my kids and start a business ultimately. And it took me seven years. I mean, it took me until now, to get back into music. And so I will say for a young person, who’s 21 or 22 and wondering, or if you’re 35 or 40 or 45 and wanting a second life and a second shot at doing something that’s really meaningful to you in a value and maybe your goals and career concepts have shifted for whatever reason. Don’t wait until everything is lined up to make it happen.

Melinda Wittstock:

I have my conversation with my daughter who’s 18 and she is a singer songwriter, also. And she actually went into the studio. She’s written four albums. She’s produced one of them, but her block was to promote herself on social media, terrified of that. And I can only imagine, and in fact I know, going through all these thoughts of oh, I have to wait. I’m not quite perfect. My body’s not perfect. My this, my that. All that kind of stuff. But very, very talented. And she has had some opportunities, but she sees one, she’s going to go off to Liverpool to study at Paul McCartney’s school, which is a big deal to get in there. So she’s going to go off and do that.

But I see that same thing and I had that same kind of fear for her that we put things in front of the things that we really want because deep down, whatever that little inner bully voice is that saying, oh, you’re not ready or you’re not good enough or whatever. How to recover from that, because the people who don’t have that tend to succeed. Nothing holds the back. They just kind of do it or they’re not afraid of rejection.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

And talent doesn’t necessarily dictate a person’s level of confidence.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s a really weird thing, but often the most talented people are the people who are the most self-critical. So you can have all the talent in the world, but someone who has less who goes out there and just pushes for it, maybe, actually succeeds. It’s interesting.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Because they’re out there doing it and either they get noticed or they make it happen because they’re persistent.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Of course the ideal combination is the talent and persistence.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. I feel you need both. This is so funny because talking about singer songwriting, the same thing is true of entrepreneurship. I mean, how many women have amazing ideas, but don’t do it or just don’t-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Absolutely. And partially because they think, well, I don’t know how, or it would take too much to kind of get the pieces required together to actually manifest this materially and to make it fiscally profitable and all we get in our head. I just feel like we all need to get out of our heads a little, because what you were saying, you start your day with a meditation. And your meditation leads to inspiration and awareness and then you make your list of five things and then you direct it to the exact bullet point. But it all came from that place of stillness. But it also came from this fundamental belief that you will be guided and I’m not tossing out some ethereal, spiritual thing necessarily, although that may be where you’re coming from. But whether it’s the universe or your own intuition or your own persistence and determination and in conjunction with the confidence piece, whatever it is, it seems to start with that stillness and the awareness that anything is possible.

And then the practicality of it, I have found with my business, is actually the easiest part because of exactly what you said, Melinda, which is that you harness your genius and what is irreplaceable and so beautifully authentic about you and you delegate the rest. I am not a marketer and that was an issue for me with my music as well. I do not enjoy promoting myself. I barely like promoting my products. I just want people to magically know about them and consume them and have their lives transformed. You don’t have conversations about it on the side but that’s not how businesses run. And so in the case of your daughter, it’s okay, well maybe you hire a social media person, a young college intern who will do it for free. In the case of business, where are the gaps? Where are you least comfortable? And who wants some experience?

Melinda Wittstock:

Somebody else is probably loves that. And they’re going to do a better job because they love it. It’s as simple as that. It’s such an interesting thing. So with Alaya now, I mean, you’ve grown this into a nice multimillion dollar business. Most women don’t reach the million dollar mark and here you are, well exceeding that. What’s that journey been like? You’re mentioning, you don’t want so much like promoting, but you’ve got all these great products-

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

I’ll tell you what it looked like for me. I didn’t even want to be the face of my own company in a way. Because what I wanted was to have, like I was saying, more intimate conversations with people and I felt like the marketing piece and having my face on everything and being in a ton of social media outlets and video after video and pick after pick, it didn’t feel like it was in alignment with my personality. I’m much more interested in fewer genuine conversations, which is why I love being a guest on podcasts with really intelligent, inspired women like you. But I felt like what was required for me to gain a certain level of momentum and success was to ultimately accept the support of Jillian Michaels, who is now one of my primary investors, who already had a huge following, who had a fan list who had dedicated followers and people who had tracked her career, who believed her credentials and who honored her recommendations.

And we’re grateful for whatever advice that she had to offer. And so in this case, she was offering the advice of taking my supplements. So in the same way that if you can’t write code, then hire a computer programmer to help you with your algorithms. If you don’t like pushing and pushing and pushing yourself and what you are so proud to have created, but are uncomfortable with sort of feeling like you’re selling something, get someone else involved who loves doing that. Jillian loves being in front of the camera. She loves when I call her and say, hey, I’ve got a new collagen and I’m super excited about it. How do you feel about shooting a five minute video with me for a Facebook ad? And she lives for that. And she’s really, really good at it.

So I think it really comes back to this whole conversation of looking at, where are you investing your time and energy and who can you get on board to move things along a lot faster than you would otherwise. I mean, it would have taken me significantly longer, I believe, to grow my company had I not accepted her support. And that’s another piece of this is just kind of examining all of your business associations, your alliances, who’s on your team, who are your contributors and how can they get the word out? How can they advance your cause, and really going after people who have something kind to say about you on their social media platforms. So you don’t have to rely heavily on yours if that’s not your thing.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think it’s actually more powerful anyway, to have sort of non-interested kind of people or influencers get the word out about you instead. Because, of course, I always think, God, people are always going to say … if I say Podopolo is really great, which it is, by the way. Of course, I would say that because I’ve spent a year and a half creating it so I’m self-interested. But if you say it or someone else says it, carries more authority, so it’s a good way to go.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

And I’ll say a letter, a really thoughtful handwritten letter goes a long way. As does … in your case, there’s no tangibility to what it is you’re offering, but if in my case there is. So if I’m interested in collaborating with someone, I send them a beautiful gift package full of my signature products and a handwritten note that says, this is what I’m doing. Do you want to be a part of it?

Melinda Wittstock:

See, that’s lovely. And I mean, we play around with that too, where we’re able to do that with, say, sponsors. And some of the podcasters, actually quite a few of the podcasters have businesses as well. And so we can kind of do that, but it’s not quite the same.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

It can be … People are self-interested to some degree when it comes to business. So you just, I think, have to really think creatively and critically about the angles. So how can I leverage this to another person’s advantage? What are they getting out of it? So I think that when it comes to media, I mean, I’m not a media expert by any means, in fact, I avoid it at all costs. But in your case, what is the advantage of this person? What do they have to gain and how can I exploit it on a very personal level? Do I know their story? Have I done my research? Do they have a daughter who’s a songwriter and something about being on a part in investing in my media platform will help advance their daughter. And guess what, we will host her as a special guest and help promote her music on the episode and we promise to have five other podcasts do the same, or whatever the thing is.

I think the more you can understand about how your product serves another person’s, I’m not going to say agenda, because that feels like a really creepy, calculated word, but sort of their goals and their purpose. I think the easier it is to solidify those connections. And also to not to be afraid to follow up. I’m one of those people whose horribly shy about not wanting to come off as too persistent. I don’t want to burden people. I don’t want to make people feel like I’m invading their computer or their inbox. And so if I send a letter and don’t hear back, it’s really hard for me to follow up. And I’ve just had to get right over that because half the time it’s gotten lost in someone’s inbox, they were halfway through responding back and had a work emergency. They were putting out a fire.

So to just kind of depersonalized things. And if you haven’t heard back a week later, follow up and say, hey, I understand how exhausting the world is right now. I’m sure you have a ton on your plate, but what’s cooking? Are you interested in learning more about what we’ve got going on? And so in the same way that a songwriter has to be super persistent and perform for label after label and audience after audience, as business people and entrepreneurs, we also have to be actively promoting ourselves and kind of seeking those relationships. And no doesn’t mean no forever. It might mean no for now. It might mean you need to generate a little more revenue for an investor to be interested, or you might need a more formal business proposal. But I think that the level of determination will also deeply sort of, not dictate, but influence results.

Melinda Wittstock:

Absolutely. It’s so true. So where can people find more products?

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

So my website is AlayaNaturals.com and I sell on Amazon as well. My Instagram is @Alaya.Naturals. That’s how bad I am, Melinda. [crosstalk 00:46:18] I’m not Instagramming enough.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’ll be in the show notes, too. I encourage everybody always go look at the show notes for each episode.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Yeah, @Alaya.Naturals.

Melinda Wittstock:

We got a lot of details in there and whatnot for everybody. But I really enjoyed our conversation so much. I’m sorry about your son. I’ve had those moments with my kids too, so I know what that’s like.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Thank you. What’s interesting about that is that he’s in total joy. He woke up, he didn’t mention it. It’s not a conversation to be had. He wants to know if there’s a fossil dig anywhere nearby and we can go dig for. He’s moved on. And that’s just another incredible thing about kids is they’re so in the moment, it’s a great reminder. Here I am dwelling and rewinding and what could I have done differently? And he’s just like, where are the fossils? Are their fossils in Los Angeles? Completely 1000% over it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Shauna, for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Thank you. It was wonderful to soar with you, Melinda. I appreciated the conversation and you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Thank you.

Shauna Brittenham Reiter:

Take care.